How James Saved the Day
by fluffey-chan
Summary: How James' ability to turn into a deer saved his family. Based on a post I saw on Tumblr. Also on my A03 account.


This was it.

Voldemort was going to kill the child that was to be his downfall, Harry Potter.

Luckily (for the dark lord, not Harry), the Potter's switched their secret keeper from Sirius Black to Peter Pettigrew, a man who's loyal to Voldemort.

As the most feared wizard of the century made his way up the walk of the small house in Godric Hollow, the occupants of the house were preparing for his arrival.

Lily took Harry up to his room and set him in the crib, standing protectively over him, while James, downstairs, prepared himself. Realizing he didn't have his wand when the door opened, he did the next best thing to casting a curse.

He turned into a deer.

Now, while that seems like it wouldn't do anything to deter a wizard, take a moment to put yourself in Voldemort's shoes.

Imagine being evil, and planning on killing someone, only to show up at their house and be greeted by a three-hundred pound stag. No humans in sight. Just you and the deer.

Now back to the Potter's house.

Lily, upstairs, was growing worried at the silence from the main level of the house. Naturally, she worried for her husband's safety, as well as her own, and more importantly, the safety of her son.

Downstairs, James, as Prongs, was having a staring contest with Voldemort.

Of course, Voldemort didn't know that this animal was James - not many people knew about him being an animagus, and since it had never come up, Peter hadn't told the dark lord about his friend being able to turn into, of all things, a fucking _stag_.

Without his wand, and as a deer, James couldn't cast any spells. That should be obvious to anyone, so after the initial shock of seeing a giant deer in the Potter's living room, and remembering that deer are herbivores, Voldemort started to move past James.

Wrong move.

Without even thinking, James rammed his horns into Voldemort.

Now, that normally wouldn't do anything to a human, other than knock them off their feet, and bruise them, maybe break a bone or two if they're unlucky, but you, deer reader (see what I did there?) have to remember that Prongs is no ordinary deer. He's a man in the body of a deer, and thus can have enhancements made to his animagus body by others. What nobody knew, other than the two involved, was that James' antlers were sharpened by his best friend himself, Sirius.

So, it should be no surprise that, do to the sharpened antlers, in addition to James' want to protect his wife and son, that Voldemort did not survive this encounter.

Later, when Lily had enough courage to come downstairs with baby Harry in one arm, and her wand in the other, pointed out in front of her, hex on her lips as she looked around, trying to find James, preferably alive, she, instead, found Prongs the stag, standing proudly over the dead body of the dark lord.

Seeing the blood on his antlers, Lily wasn't sure if she should laugh at the fact that James had stabbed a man to death as a deer, be worried that he had stabbed a man to death as a deer, or just accept the fact that James had actually stabbed a man to death as a freaking deer.

Lily chose option two, and let out a laugh that sounded to James like music. After laughing for a few moments, Lily realized why James hadn't turned back into himself.

He, of course, wanted his antlers cleaned of the blood and other gore bits before he turned human again.

This was a reasonable want.

You try being an animagus with blood on some part of you and turn back to a human. You'll find that having blood on whatever part of your animal form translates directly to having blood on that part of your human body, or the closest thing to it.

In James' case, he would have blood on his head if his antlers weren't properly cleaned before he changed back.

Lily was the one to clean the blood off, seeing as she was the only other living human adult around at the moment, and she alternated between having to clean his antlers off (why couldn't he just shower after turning back? He needed one anyway... ) and laughing about the fact that Voldemort, the very man they had been hiding from for several months, had been stabbed to death by, of all things, her husband as a _deer_.

After his antlers were cleaned of blood, James returned to his human form, and thanked his wife.

The ministry was contacted after Lily had put Harry down for the night. Thankfully, they didn't ask any questions about _how_ a deer had gotten in and stabbed a man to death, and they removed the body and were able to get the blood stains out of the carpet and walls.

Beyond that night, nobody in the Potter household never spoke of it again.

Harry grew up loved, and even had a few younger siblings (James wanted enough kids to have a whole quidditch team, but Lily said no more after four), Peter Pettigrew was found out to have betrayed the Potters and be a Death Eater, and was sent to Azkaban for it, and the other original Marauders, Sirius and Remus, were named godfather to all of the Potter children.

The End.


End file.
